Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Welcome to the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Find your writer tribe and kick insecurity to the curb! For regular interaction, join the IWSG Facebook Group here. Writers of all skill level and background ask questions and offer support.Follow the monthly IWSG blog hop here. Pick a number and visit a few blogs. Comment and make a friend!Now the IWSG crew has a monthly prompt. Whoohoo! Even easier to join up now.

July 6th Question:

What's the best thing someone has ever said about your writing?

One of my friends who is a writer, who I was friends with before I started writing myself, kept bugging me to read something of mine. I don't know about you all, but sometimes it's harder to have real-life friends read your work vs. writer friends. Imagine they hate what you write, and every July 4th BBQ you have to face them, wondering if they're thinking how terrible your writing is as they serve up a hot dog.

So, I went ahead with it. My friend, a guy, reads and writes wonderful short stories and sci-fi. He read through my whole young adult manuscript, a heartfelt contemporary story about sisters and complicated family dynamics and first love. He said the first few pages were a little tough for him because he wasn't used to reading books from a teen girl's perspective. But then, by about page ten, he said he forgot all about those things and just focused on the story.

That may sound simple, but I consider it a huge compliment! I was able to bring him into a story he would not have otherwise read, and made him forget that it wasn't his usual fare. My manuscript still needed work, but the essential storytelling bones were there.

I read a lot of contest entries through Romance Writers and Pitch Wars and other volunteer mentoring. The best feeling is when a story takes hold of you and you forget all your hang-ups and preconceived ideas.

Monday, July 4, 2016

I've been binge-watching House of Cards on Netflix, which is pretty timely in an election year. I can't say it's giving me much faith in our political process. At least it's fiction.

Beyond that, I've been making a dent in my To Be Read list, and still on a self-imposed library ban to read through the books I own (with exception of downloading audio books from the library). Yes, these are #bookpeopleproblems :)

Now, on to updates!

New website ... soon!

Great change takes time, but soon I'll have my new website up. I'll announce it across social media!

ALTERATIONS Release Date

My debut young adult novel Alterations is releasing September 6! Super stoked. A cover reveal and advanced copies coming soon. Spark is a digital book imprint of Bloomsbury, so my timeline is more narrow for these updates prior to release. Meanwhile, I'm over on Instagram regularly chatting about books if you want to follow me!

YA Buccaneers Summer Reading!

The group blog I joined this year is celebrating its three year anniversary. You know what that means: giveaways galore, and a bunch of fun posts all about books! Check out the intro post here.

Pitch Wars is Coming!

Writers seeking publication: the time is approaching! I'm signing on as a mentor for my third year.

Here are the basics on Pitch Wars, where published and agented writers and editors choose a writer to help polish a full manuscript prior to a pre-selected agent round. The submission window opens August 3 on Brenda Drake's website, but the party starts sooner on twitter under the #pitchwars tag, plus hit the Home tab on Brenda's blog for all kinds of preview articles on the pitch contest.